Zambia is a landlocked country located in South-Central Africa and is bordered by 8 countries, namely the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the northeast, Malawi to the east, Mozambique to the southeast, Zimbabwe and Botswana to the south, Namibia to the southwest, and Angola to the west.
March, 2020
April, 2020
December, 2020
July, 2021
December, 2021
The initial dataset obtained from filtering only for Zambia from the “coronavirus” dataset consisted of 2652 observations recording the number of confirmed cases, recovered cases and deaths per day during the time period of 22/01/2022 - 23/06/2022.
However, recovered cases beyond 05/08/2021 have not been recorded and were removed from the final dataset considered for analysis during the data cleaning process, resulting in the following dataset consisting of 2329 observations with a structure as can be seen below.
As such, recovered cases were not considered in the analysis proper.
knitr::kable(head(zam_cov_full))
| date | province | country | lat | long | type | cases | uid | iso2 | iso3 | code3 | combined_key | population | continent_name | continent_code |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-01-22 | NA | Zambia | -13.1339 | 27.84933 | confirmed | 0 | 894 | ZM | ZMB | 894 | Zambia | 18383956 | Africa | AF |
| 2020-01-23 | NA | Zambia | -13.1339 | 27.84933 | confirmed | 0 | 894 | ZM | ZMB | 894 | Zambia | 18383956 | Africa | AF |
| 2020-01-24 | NA | Zambia | -13.1339 | 27.84933 | confirmed | 0 | 894 | ZM | ZMB | 894 | Zambia | 18383956 | Africa | AF |
| 2020-01-25 | NA | Zambia | -13.1339 | 27.84933 | confirmed | 0 | 894 | ZM | ZMB | 894 | Zambia | 18383956 | Africa | AF |
| 2020-01-26 | NA | Zambia | -13.1339 | 27.84933 | confirmed | 0 | 894 | ZM | ZMB | 894 | Zambia | 18383956 | Africa | AF |
| 2020-01-27 | NA | Zambia | -13.1339 | 27.84933 | confirmed | 0 | 894 | ZM | ZMB | 894 | Zambia | 18383956 | Africa | AF |
summary(zam_cov_full)
## date province country lat
## Min. :2020-01-22 Length:2329 Length:2329 Min. :-13.13
## 1st Qu.:2020-08-03 Class :character Class :character 1st Qu.:-13.13
## Median :2021-02-13 Mode :character Mode :character Median :-13.13
## Mean :2021-02-27 Mean :-13.13
## 3rd Qu.:2021-09-05 3rd Qu.:-13.13
## Max. :2022-06-23 Max. :-13.13
## long type cases uid
## Min. :27.85 Length:2329 Min. : 0.0 Min. :894
## 1st Qu.:27.85 Class :character 1st Qu.: 0.0 1st Qu.:894
## Median :27.85 Mode :character Median : 9.0 Median :894
## Mean :27.85 Mean : 222.7 Mean :894
## 3rd Qu.:27.85 3rd Qu.: 122.0 3rd Qu.:894
## Max. :27.85 Max. :5555.0 Max. :894
## iso2 iso3 code3 combined_key
## Length:2329 Length:2329 Min. :894 Length:2329
## Class :character Class :character 1st Qu.:894 Class :character
## Mode :character Mode :character Median :894 Mode :character
## Mean :894
## 3rd Qu.:894
## Max. :894
## population continent_name continent_code
## Min. :18383956 Length:2329 Length:2329
## 1st Qu.:18383956 Class :character Class :character
## Median :18383956 Mode :character Mode :character
## Mean :18383956
## 3rd Qu.:18383956
## Max. :18383956
Some key takeaways from Fig. 2 -
Peaks (roughly) - May 2020, July 2020, Jan 2021, Jun 2021, late Dec-early Jan 2022
Valleys (roughly) - Jun 2020, Oct/Nov 2020, May 2021, Nov 2021
Note - The proportions of the stacked area graphs in the above figure are not immediately accurate as the cumulative totals on the y axis have been scaled by square root in order to better visualize the cumulative deaths plot
A collection of neighbouring countries in the southern region of Africa were selected in order to compare COVID-19 data on a regional level, with 4 of the 5 chosen being countries that directly sit on the border of Zambia (i.e. Angola, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe) and the 5th being South Africa, a major player both politically and economically in the region that was severely affected during the COVID-19 pandemic.
By Fig. 5,
We can see the discrepancy between South Africa and the rest with respect to confirmed cases even more clearly than in Fig. 4, with the total cases of the other 5 countries combined still amounting to less than a third of South Africa’s. (approximately 4 million vs 1.1 million)
Zambia shows the 2nd highest count of total cases amongst those considered at appr. 325,000, around 70,000 cases more than the next highest, Zimbabwe.
Angola has the lowest count of total cases at appr. 100,000 by a relatively sized margin in comparison to the differences between non South African countries. (gap of appr. 70,000 between itself and the next lowest, Namibia)
By Fig. 6,
The contrast in the total deaths values are even more stark than total cases when considering South Africa vs the rest, as South Africa’s death count is more than 5 times as much as the others combined.
Total death counts of the non South African countries are similar relatively speaking, with Angola having the lowest as was the case with total cases. Zambia despite having the 2nd highest number of total cases by a decent margin is only the 4th highest in total death count.
Why the US, NZ, Sweden and Sri Lanka?